The Dancing Hamster is Dead

Late one night in grad school, I was up studying way too long. You know the kind of studying where it’s just making things worse by staying up so late. When I get really tired I tend to get a little goofy and laugh at anything. Well, I took a break from studying and went online to check the news and I somehow ended up on a page with a bunch of hamsters dancing and a looped audio clip that sounded like a drunken chipmunk yodeling. I couldn’t stop laughing. The combination of sleeplessness, caffeine, stress, boredom, and goofiness created a perfect storm of about 5 minutes of non-stop laughing. It was just about the funniest thing I had ever seen. In fact, every morning my alarm is set to the drunken chipmunk yodeling song because it is so annoyingly funny that you have to wake up.
Well, this morning I received some bad news. Hampton, the Dancing Hamster, is dead. It was first reported on CNN and then the Wall Street Journal. Here is a quote from BBSpot:

Hampton The Dancing Hamster, the animated little rodent that lit up millions of monitors in 1999, has sadly passed away. Hampton, one of the animal kingdom’s first Internet celebrities, died suddenly in his Silicon Valley Habitrail home. The bouncing little fur-ball was eight-years-old, which is apparently pretty good for a hamster.

It’s a very sad day for us all but try to remember the good times when Hampton brought fun and laughter into all of our lives. Because of Hampton I aced that awful psych exam. He gave me the shot of endorphins I needed to make it through the night. So, raise your glass and give thanks to Hampton, the Dancing Hamster. We’ll miss you, brother.